load-utf8-if-no-bom

Arguments: cg-configuration

This option has an effect only on the Windows platform. On GTk, CG always saves and loads files in UTF8 format.

This CG configuration option determines whether the function load-file will assume that the file is in UTF8 format if it contains no byte order marker (BOM) bytes at the beginning. This affects the IDE's source code editor as well as calling load-file on a text-edit-pane in a CG application.

When true, load-file will read a file that has no BOM using the :utf8 external-format, and otherwise it will read it using the :default external-format, which is the external-format of the locale into which Windows is currently booted. On an English version of Windows, for example, the default external-format will typically be a Latin1 encoding.

If the external-format that is used does not match the format of the file that's being read, then the file will probably not be read correctly if it contains non-ASCII characters. If a file to be read has no BOM and is in neither UTF8 format nor the default format, then an application could use Common Lisp functions to load the file into a string (specifying the necessary external-format), and then call set-text to put the text into a text-edit-pane.

This option is nil by default, mostly for compatibility with existing files that have been written in the default format. Prior to Allegro CL 9.0, save-file and the IDE's source code editor always used the default format on Windows. On GTk, UTf8 has always been used.

This option can be found on the Editor tab of the IDE's Options dialog.

See also external-format-for-saved-files and compile-files-as-utf8.

Copyright (c) 1998-2019, Franz Inc. Oakland, CA., USA. All rights reserved.
This page is new in the 9.0 release.
Created 2019.8.20.